Friday, February 28, 2014

Here I respond to Keith
Parsons’ third post. Jeff Lowder’s
index of existing and forthcoming installments in my exchange with Prof.
Parsons can be found here.

I’d like to
respond now, Keith, to your comments about Bertrand Russell’s objection to
First Cause arguments. Let me first make
some general remarks about the objection and then I’ll get to your
comments. Russell wrote, in Why I Am
Not a Christian:

If
everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be
anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that
there cannot be any validity in that argument. (pp. 6-7)

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Here I respond to Keith
Parsons’ second post. Jeff Lowder is
keeping track of the existing and forthcoming installments in my exchange with
Prof. Parsons here.

Keith,
thanks for these remarks. The question
we are now considering is: Why would the material universe or anything in it
(an electron or a quark, say) require a cause to conserve it in existence? Your view is that the supposition that it
requires one is “gratuitous.” You write:
“Is there anything missing from an electron that would have to be filled in or
supplied from outside? There is nothing
in our physical theories that indicates such a lack.”

Keith, thank
you for your very gracious response. Like
Jeff Lowder, you raise the issue of the relative amounts of attention I and
other theistic philosophers pay to “New Atheist” writers like Dawkins, Harris,
et al. as opposed to the much more serious arguments of atheist philosophers
like Graham Oppy, Jordan Howard Sobel, and many others. Let me begin by reiterating what I
said last week in response to Jeff, namely that I have nothing but respect
for philosophers like the ones you cite and would never lump them in with
Dawkins and Co. And as I showed in my
response to Jeff, I have in fact publicly praised many of these writers many
times over the years for the intellectual seriousness of their work.

Monday, February 24, 2014

In previous
posts I’ve critically examined, from a Scholastic point of view, some of
Descartes’ best-known arguments.
Specifically, I’ve commented on Descartes’ “clear
and distinct perception” argument for dualism, and his “trademark”
argument for God’s existence. We’ve
seen how these arguments illustrate how Descartes, though the father of modern
philosophy, in some respects continues to be influenced by the
Aristotelian-Scholastic tradition, even as in other respects he abandons
it. It’s the novelties, I have
suggested, that get him into trouble. This
is evidenced once again in what is sometimes called his “preservation” argument
for God’s existence.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Keith
Parsons’ feelings are, it seems, still
hurt over some frank things I said about him a few years ago (here
and here). It seems to me that when a guy dismisses
as a “fraud” an entire academic field to which many thinkers of
universally acknowledged genius have contributed, and maintains that its
key arguments do not even rise to the level of a “respectable philosophical
position” worthy of “serious academic attention,” then when its defenders hit
back, he really ought to have a thicker skin and more of a sense of humor about
himself. But that’s just me.

Naturally
Lowder thinks there are better atheist arguments than those presented by the “New
Atheists,” but it’s no small thing for him to have made such an admission -- an
admission too few of his fellow atheist bloggers are willing to make, at least
in public. So, major points to Lowder
for intellectual honesty.

Is there any structural component
visible that is metal? Not one. It wouldn’t do to have any, since in Salvor
Hardin’s day there was no native metal to speak of and hardly any imported
metal. We even installed old plastic,
pink with age, when we built this huge pile, so that visitors from other worlds
can stop and say, ‘Galaxy! What lovely
old plastic!’

The very
notion of “lovely old plastic” seems absurd on its face, and I imagine Asimov
wrote the passage with tongue in cheek. Aged
wood, stone, or metal structures or furniture can be aesthetically appealing,
but aged plastic only ever seems shabby at best and positively ugly at
worst. Now, why is that?

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Let us fix our attention out of
ourselves as much as possible; let us chase our imagination to the heavens, or
to the utmost limits of the universe; we never really advance a step beyond
ourselves, nor can conceive any kind of existence, but those perceptions, which
have appear'd in that narrow compass. This is the universe of the imagination,
nor have we any idea but what is there produc'd.

David Hume

Come with me and you'll be
In a world of pure imagination
Take a look and you'll see
Into your imagination

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Readers not
already familiar with it should be aware of Studia Neoaristotelica: A Journal
of Analytical Scholasticism. Recent
issues include articles by Nicholas Rescher, Richard Swinburne, Theodore Scaltsas,
William Vallicella, James Franklin, Helen Hattab, and other authors known to readers
of this blog. Subscription information
for individuals and institutions can be found here.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

The 9th
Annual Thomistic Seminar for graduate students in philosophy and related
disciplines, sponsored by The Witherspoon Institute, will be held from August 3
- 9, 2014 in Princeton, NJ. The theme is
“Aquinas, Christianity, and Metaphysics” and the faculty are John Haldane,
Edward Feser, John O’Callaghan, Candace Vogler, and Linda Zagzebski. The application deadline is March 15. More information here.

Monday, February 3, 2014

My new book Scholastic
Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction will be out this May. I’ve expounded and defended various aspects
of Scholastic metaphysics at some length in other places -- for example, in
chapter 2 of The
Last Superstition and chapter 2 of Aquinas
-- but the new book pursues the issues at much greater length and in much
greater depth. Unlike those other books,
it also focuses exclusively on questions of fundamental metaphysics, with
little or no reference to questions in natural theology, ethics, philosophy of
mind, or the like. Call it Heavy Meta. Even got a theme song.

To whet your
appetite, here’s the cover copy and a detailed table of contents:

About Me

I am a writer and philosopher living in Los Angeles. I teach philosophy at Pasadena City College. My primary academic research interests are in the philosophy of mind, moral and political philosophy, and philosophy of religion. I also write on politics, from a conservative point of view; and on religion, from a traditional Roman Catholic perspective.